Relationships

Lad’s Mags are being openly displayed and sold right across the country, this not only breaches the sexual discrimination act for staff, by supporting an environment conducive of sexual harassment, but also forces this discrimination and harassment on unconsenting customers.

And they don’t just start and end with pornographic content and covers that sexually objectifying and degrade women, they also promote harmful attitudes that underpin violence against women. Continue reading →

Facebook is billed as a family friendly social media platform, yet a few key words entered into their search engine will show you it has become a breeding ground for easy to access pornography, nudity, child pornography, illicit underage content and derogatory language about women and girls. Continue reading →

Women and girls are in the midst of a cultural sexualisation and exploitation crisis across all spectrums of our lives and impacting us in many harmful ways. According to the Australian Sports commission such sexualised promotions are “reason enough for some girls and women to choose another sport or even no sport at all”. Watch this 40 second video which emphasizes this powerfully Continue reading →

Explicit imagery of women that we are faced with daily, negatively impacting on women’s body image and sense of self, while, as ‘The Bro Code’ says conditioning men to dehumanize and disrespect women, creating a sexist culture.

Enough is enough, things have to change. Those profiting off exploiting and sexualising women’s bodies won’t stop on integrity and decency’s behalf. Men – it is up to you to stop benefiting from it and buying into it. Women – stay brave, stay strong and keep speaking up for the return of our dignity. And what of the women that take part in this pornified culture, in the images in ‘The Bro Code’ preview, in our society? Read the article below

In a culture with widespread sexual objectification, women (especially) tend to view themselves as objects of desire for others… Pop culture sells women and girls a hurtful fiction that their value lies in how sexy they appear to others; they learn at a very young age that their sexuality is for others…

This unfortunately leads to a society where some women think they have to be as sexy, sexual and readily available as they can be to compete with the imagery they are inundated with daily, to feel good about themselves, to find their value in this pornified culture. A vicious cycle breeding disposable women, as youth as well as sexualisation is dominent in this culture.

Due to illness and a need for rest on all levels here is some inspiration for women and men who desire a world and relationships based in real love.

“Real men stay faithful. They don’t have time to look for other women because they’re too busy looking for new ways to love their own.” (Drake)

“We need to teach our daughters to distinguish between a man who flatters her – and a man who compliments her. A man who spends money on her – and a man who invests in her. A man who views her as property – and a man who views her properly. A man who lusts after her – and a man who loves her. A man who believes he is God’s gift to women – and a man who remembers a woman was God’s gift to man…And then teach our boys to be that kind of a man.” (unknown)

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about the things that matter” (Martin Luther King Jr.)

For those of you who didn’t get an insiders look at the LFL Promo match at Sydney last night, you missed the cause of equality for female athletes being set back, here are the updates…

Grey team player loses her pants, the mostly male crowd goes wild, they replay it ‘close up’ on the big screen and the crowd cheers. Pink team makes a touchdown, player celebrates by slapping her thighs and making hand gesture of a vagina. An athlete in the crowd says “I’m a sports person and I find this so offensive.” LFL players dance for the men, the men go wild, not unlike a strip club (sounds like strip club sport, looks like strip club sport, equals strip club sport). Three male spectators are invited on the field to chase and tackle one of the LFL players (Melinda Tankard Reist – “in no other sport would crowd be invited onto the field and tackle [grope] a player.”

Collective shout tweet – “sexual harassment of players is accepted and even encouraged at the LFL, how many men’s sports would condone the same?” and asks “is there any protection from sexual harassment in their contratcts?” As Nora Dett tweeted, “Three men tackling one women to the ground is entertaining? Outside the LFL setting that would be a very different story.” One spectator was overheard saying, “nobody goes to this for sport. It’s like saying they go to a strip club to see a good dancer.”

Women in lingerie handing out merchandise to the men in the crowd, the men go crazy. A trialthlete says, “can’t take anymore, leaving” and even free tickets can’t keep some disgusted audience members from leaving. Older female host asks men in crowd so stop stacking their beer cups up, they throw beer on her. Caitlin roper tweets “they claim LFL is about sport, it’s really for men who like seeing women get hurt.” (While having their pants ripped off).

A lot of men getting drunk and becoming more aggresive, yelling at LFL players, this is not promoting women’s equality in sport. LFL player on her way to the VIP lounge nearly grabbed by a pack of men, security has to step in. Blow up doll passed around the crowd, one man simulating oral sex, men boo at attendent who takes it away, remember the whole family was invited. afeministmother tweets “to see the exploitation and abuse of women yet again ‘regulated’ and packaged for the main stream is depressing.”

Melinda Tankard Reist tweets, “wonder what Cory Bernadi thinks of pants down close up replay, 3 men on 1 woman tackle and blow up doll? The LFL still sport Senator?”

During time-outs the LFL tune camera’s onto two women in audience kissing, men go mental. Some men at LFL have paid extra for the party zone, they can ‘stay back, take pics and whatever you want.’ Lap dance anyone?

Remember the LFL contracts prohibit the players from wearing underwear beneath their lingerie uniforms (close up replay of player losing her pants) and the LFL offered special prices for juniors aged 2-12 years.

The wonderful Dr Michael Flood from the Australian ‘men against sexism’ website http://www.xyonline.net/ has published an article on the Lingerie Football League coming to Australia – ‘LFL, what is it really about and do we want it in Australia”

As Minister for Sport, I can’t abide a spectacle that degrades women and threatens to undermine the progress of women in sport in Australia.

Austalian Minister for Sport, Kate Lundy, has published an article on www.mamamia.com.au saying among many things, that:

It offends me that the promoters are hiding behind the guise of LFL being a ‘sport’. Lingerie Football objectifies and exploits women by trading on their sexuality to make money pure and simple. The LFL perverts the concept of ‘sport’ to make a profit and in doing so the promoters abandon the concept that sport should be a celebration of great athletic talent to inspire the next generation of kids to give it a go.

Thank you Kate Lundy for finally speaking up about this sexually gratuitous spectacle under the guise of empowering women in sport.

However the Lingerie Football League Founder Mitch Mortaza is not impressed, tweeting earlier on his discovery of the Sports Ministers thoughts on the LFL, that;

Many Australians support what our Sports Minister has said, we do not want the sexploitation of the LFL in Australia. It’s time to think of our children, teenagers and the rest of the women in our society outside of the LFL, as Kate Lundy says:

“We can do so much better than LFL. And most importantly, our daughters deserve more.”

I agree we need good men to support us in our feminist causes and to speak up for us to other men. We need good feminist men in our relatinships, our lives and our world. Here is an excerpt from David’s paper;

But these comforts (for men) come at far too high a cost to both men and women. The sexist ideas, words, and practices mobilized by some men and bolstered by eons of encoding into both the visible and hidden structures of our society, don’t just do harm to women. They also turn men into stunted stereotypes who, like lemmings marching along a path laid out by years of misogyny and ignorance, will eventually parade right off the edge of the cliff. These ideas, words, and practices make us lazy, predictable, and pathetic, protected by delusions of our own superiority that make us, in at least one sense, intellectual and moral toddlers.

I have an alternative approach. It’s my approach, and others exist. But my way of being a feminist includes choosing carefully the words I use, avoiding offensive gendered terminology; it relies upon the sometimes-uncomfortable task of calling out those who perpetuate gendered stereotypes in their words and deeds; it begs for the public advancement of alternative ways of shaping social and personal gender relations; and it absolutely requires constant attention to the way I think about and treat women, so that through practice I am able to re-write the narrative implanted in me through social structures hostile to true gender parity. It takes what the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche called “long practice and daily work at it.”

Someday we will pass the Event Horizon of gender equality, that point beyond which those who celebrate gender diversity and parity, those who refuse to participate in structures of gender domination, will have moved permanently beyond their intellectual and moral ancestors. Men today can choose to be a part of this movement or they can continue to hide behind false and overwrought notions of either liberal equality or gender exceptionalism. However, in choosing the latter path they will prolong the life of moribund — but still harmful — relations that keep so many women underemployed, under-represented, and in violent relationships, and that arrest the development of the male gender.

The latter choice is the wrong one. It’s time for all men to be feminists.

David Moscrop is a PhD student in political science at the University of British Columbia and founding editor of Thought Out Loud (thoughtoutloud.org).